The Idealists: Part II

The Idealists – Part II


Jethro Tull

“We don’t have to go, Derick,” she says.

He tries to say, “I’m okay,” but instead coughs for several seconds.

“It’s a miserable night. We’ve both got grading to do. We’d only be out, what, forty bucks?”

“Fifty,” he manages. “No, let’s go. We said we were going to do something every month and be like real people, and this is it for October. So let’s go.”

She frowns, as he opens the door until the rain and wind cover his face and slide down his collar, then her face softens. She waits until he has taken the brunt of it, and when he doesn’t seem to be getting back in the car to go home, she gets out, grabs the umbrella, and takes his hand.

They had to park several blocks down from the venue, on the other side of the college. They walk quickly through the campus, past groups of twenty-somethings huddled in doorways smoking and watching.

“Remember college?” She says, “Back when we were happy?” It’s a joke he’d started, but they’d both continued. She doesn’t know if he’ll bite. If she stopped and thought about it, she probably couldn’t count ten words they’d said to each other all week. But it had been a busy time.

“Gold sheets in the dorm and butlers bringing your meals,” he adds.

“Of course,” she says, with a little thrill, “we could only afford a part-time butler, so we had to eat breakfast in the dining hall with the common people.”

“I would’ve starved,” he says. “Of course,” he adds, “our butler was really a prostitute who butled part-time to pay for her dying father’s nursing home bills.”

“Of course,” she says. “Ours was actually a monkey we rescued from the science lab and trained to answer the door and be snooty.”

“Aren’t monkeys naturally snooty?”

“Not this one. Because of the experimentation, you know. He’d had his snootiness removed. “

“Sad,” he says.

“It was. Also, he refused to wear a diaper and crapped all over the place.”

He laughs. “I had a roommate like that.”

“I remember,” she says. She takes his arm and pulls him tight. His arm is damp. She realizes that though he’s carrying the umbrella, he’s been using it to mostly cover her and not himself. She pulls him tight so they are both under it. They try to walk like that, in step. His legs are longer than hers, so she has to keep part of her attention on her stride. It’s difficult, but with a little effort, they manage.


C.L. Bledsoe

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